“For if, because of one man’s trespass (lapse, offense) death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive [God’s] overflowing grace (unmerited favor) and the free gift of righteousness (putting them into right standing with Himself) reign as kings in life through the One, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.”--- Romans 5:17 (Amp.)

It seemed to take forever to get my head to focus on the presence of Christ during my early morning time with Him today. Of course, He is with me in every moment throughout the day but I find it critical to start my day paying close attention to His actual being in the room. As Easter approached, I found myself wondering what the power of the resurrection means to me in a practical way. Sure, the obvious thing is that I’m adopted into God’s family and escape eternal separation (aka “Hell”). I get that part. That’s great in the future, but what about now? I asked the Lord and found myself reading Romans 5:17 in my Amplified Bible, which clearly states that I reign as a king in life.

We reign as kings (and queens!) in life? This isn’t some future heavenly experience, this is now! I even looked up the translation of the words just to make sure and, yes, in Strong’s Concordance I found that in Romans 5:17 what we do is: “to be king, to exercise kingly power, to reign”.

I think many Christians have a severe self-esteem problem rooted in an ignorance of understanding our identity in Christ. We are typically focused on who we were, as opposed to who we are. Which, if you really deeply think about it, is disrespectful of what Jesus did at the cross and at His resurrection. Apparently He actually died to hand us a scepter (think of it as a baton with authority). Something happened with the resurrection that granted us a powerful authority and, it necessarily follows, some sort of kingdom within which to exercise that authority as well.

So Jesus did all that, yet we operate in a mode that somehow diminishes the reality of what He so painfully did. I wonder how He feels about that? He dies to give us a gift that we only partially accept. We accept the salvation part but don’t contemplate the new authority given us at the cost of His very bloody experience.

In Matthew 22:37, Jesus noted that we are to love God with all of our minds. Perhaps an act of love for us to consider is to deeply contemplate if we are respecting Jesus by fully exercising the authority we are given within the territory given us at the purchase of His blood. Are we embracing the power that the baton grants us?